Wednesday, August 26, 2009

New Show at Orland Park Library

Oak Forest, Yankee Woods
©Antonia Ruppert
Mixed Media on Paper

In conjunction with my month-long exhibition, Orland Park Library’s Outreach Services is sponsoring a Meet the Artist night on Friday, September 4th, 2009 beginning at 7pm. In addition, I will present my talk, “Aging with Dignity and Compassion” on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 beginning at 7pm.

For the last year, I have been grappling with the idea of aging and connecting that to my artwork. This new artistic direction came about when I started caring for my grandmother in the summer of 2008.  I cherished singing hymns with her or having her ask for more strawberry jello or black walnut ice cream.

After painting grandmother several times, I focused my artistic energies on capturing fleeting moments with her. I had no idea she’d leave us this past February.

Fleeting. Changing. Temporal. I found that with my experience with my grandma. I also found that same experience in my recent trip to Saugatuck, MI at Oxbow. The sun was there and then it wasn’t. Shadows moved across the space with the clouds. I had to paint, design and carve out negative spaces that moved.

Life is short. Creating helps me enjoy it.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Mmm! Oxbow School of Art in Saugatuck, MI.

Oxbow path ©Antonia Ruppert
Mmm! Ox-Bow, school of art and artists’ residency. Good views. Yummy food. Soulful people. Oxbow is in Saugatuck, MI and is affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It has served as a retreat for visual artists since 1910. This past week, I took a drawing/painting class with New York artist, Jimmy Wright. He pushed me and challenged me in significant ways - allowing me to create some paintings that are precious to me.
Here are some views of Oxbow and my first painting. Well not exactly - I had actually spent a day painting a still life of peaches which Jimmy abhorred. 
The next day he said, "No more peaches." He suggested I get out into the land. So this is actually my first finished landscape painting using the techniques he taught us.
View from my easel ©Antonia Ruppert
Landscape painting, layer one
©Antonia Ruppert

Don't you love learning something new?